Fake Photos in the News

Lots of fake photography is showing up in the news, foisted on us by such august bodies as Reuters and the Communist Youth newspaper Juventud Rebelde. The latest is this gem, which purports to show Fidel Castro holding a copy of the Granma newspaper after his recent surgery:

Anyone with just a smidgeon of PhotoShop experience recognizes that this image is at least partially fake. The newspaper, blinding-white and displaying no perspective gradience whatsoever, was obviously added later. My guess is that the main photo was taken before his surgery. They probably asked him to hold up a blank sheet of paper, then crudely copied the image of the newspaper onto it later. Many photo experts and blog sites will no doubt point out some smaller details in the photo, such as the lack of a shadow near his thumb, faulty color values and white balance when compared to other items in the composition, and other details I've probably missed.

I am amused and heartened that, despite the advances in computers and technology in the last decade, the hustlers and scammers of this world not only still suck at creating fake photos, but they can't spell and are unable to use standard English idioms correctly in their spam e-mails. This makes their lame scams easy to spot, and easy to ignore.

I encourage all consumers of media products to learn how to spot bogus photos, biased reporting, and other sloppy or deceptive reporting practices. They don't just show up in the pages of Commie news rags, either...

NASA's Perplexing Policies

So let me get this straight: NASA chief Mike Griffin has decided to launch the Space Shuttle Discovery on July 1st, despite recommendations against a liftoff attempt by the space agency's chief engineer and safety offices.

Engineers recommend a launch delay, and their opinion is overridden. Sounds like a repeat of 1986, when a launch delay was called for and ignored, resulting in the loss of Challenger, and the 2003 loss of Columbia after some engineers expressed concern about the loss of foam insulation after liftoff.

Here's a bit of the news release. Prepare to scratch your head:

After going on record as having recommended a delay, the dissenting officials said they did not oppose launching on July 1. The two officials "recommended that we not fly, but they do not object to us flying," Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for space operations, explained to reporters at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The officials are NASA's chief engineer, Chris Scolese, and the head of the office of Safety and Mission Assurance, Bryan O'Connor. NASA officials acknowledged that recommending against a launch but not opposing it sounded contradictory. Shuttle program manager N. Wayne Hale Jr. said this was proof that NASA had changed. After the Columbia disaster, it came out that some officials had been worried about the 1.7-pound piece of foam that could be seen hitting the left wing during launch. Their concerns had been brushed aside. Now, Hale said, every voice is heard, even if it sends a somewhat confusing message to the public." People concerned about culture change ought to take heart," Hale said. " The agency has really changed."

Here's what I thought as I read the article:

"Recommending against a launch but not opposing it sound[s] contradictory..." [Thanks for acknowledging that. Now how about explaining your goofy rationale to us?]

"Every voice is heard" [...but we'll still veto our engineer's opinions.]

"The agency has really changed..." [We're more screwed up than ever before!]

If the opinion of a "chief engineer" and a "safety office" simply don't count in NASA's decision-making tree, perhaps it's time for that bureaucracy to simply fade away. The more I hear about NASA's inner workings, the more I support Burt Rutan's views on NASA and government involvement in space in general.

Maybe I'm becoming a Space Curmudgeon.

"Uh" Marketing

Over the past year or so, I’ve noticed a huge increase in the amount of what I’ve termed, “Uh Marketing.”

You can hear this annoying technique on national radio ads for products and services such as American Express’ Open Network, Skin-Zinc, and others.

It involves the use of a professional voice talent who plays the part of someone who has used the product or service being advertised. The part of the ads that’s so annoying and obviously fake is the insertion of the words, “uh,” “um,” and other vocal stops, at a rate far greater than a real person would actually use. This attempt to make the dialog sound more authentic and natural has exactly the opposite effect. It sounds like an actor reading a script. Which is, of course, exactly what it is.

The actor who read the Skin-Zinc ad copy even intentionally stumbles over the word “eczema” in an effort to sound like his is a real testimonial. (By the way, this particular word was recently removed from Skin-Zinc ads because of an FDA warning letter about the efficacy of Skin-Zinc.)

It doesn’t stop at radio ads. My answering machine is the recipient of at least three or four unsolicited marketing messages per week that use the technique. Usually, I’ll return home to find a message like this:

“Hi, uh, this Jeff Smith. Um, I’ve been trying to get hold of you guys for a week or so, to let you know about the great refinancing deals we’ve got going on right now. Because of your great, uh, credit, you’re eligible for a new low rate on your home equity loan. Now, uh, you need to contact us within the next 48 hours to take advantage of this offer, so, uh, I hope you’ll pick up the phone and, uh, call one of our representatives at (800) 555-5555.”

Every one of these messages has a similar “pacing” of the “uh’s” and “um’s,” a pacing the no one uses naturally, especially not when they’re supposed to be professional who’s delivering an important message, so it's clear that this is an actual, scripted technique that someone thinks will work. I think it sucks, and I think it's stupid.

But does it work? Is there a national marketing company behind this? Is this the latest hot trend in advertising? If so, somebody let me know, so I can write some letters to ask them to, uh, cut it out.

Transposed Loyalties?

While standing in line at the local WalMart this evening, I hapened to notice a poster published by the Phillip Morris Company. It said, "Selling cigarettes to minors: It's not worth it." Below this was the slogan, "It's not just wrong, it's illegal."

Pardon me for being somewhat of a cynic on this matter, but I'm disgusted that the slogan was written that way. Shouldn't it read "It's not just illegal, it's wrong"? Isn't one's moral compass supposed to derive from a much deeper level than a law -- a law written by man and administered by an organized society? Aren't we supposed to think of the effects our actions will have on our soul, rather than how much trouble we're going to get into from the Man for doing the wrong thing? Am I just being grumpy and overly-moral here? Somebody slap me.

Web Spam Sites Must Die

I yearn for the day that certain obnoxious web entrepreneurs outgrow their proclivity to create Web Spam sites. These things are so tiresome and worthless...

For those not familiar with these idiotic wastes of bandwidth, let me educate you: Web Spam sites are pages made up of advertisements and links to other ad-laden websites. I’m not talking about sites that provide actual content surrounded by peripheral banner advertisements. I’m talking about sites whose main content is ad space. They pretend to offer assistance, information, or facts about a subject -- often an esoteric subject -- but once you look around these sites, you realize that their information is shallow, meaningless, not helpful, and written by people who don’t know anything about the subject. The sole purpose of these sites is to get inexperienced web users to click on the advertisements on their sites. Their creators have cleverly built their pages to get high rankings with the search engines, often by flooding their sites with search terms in various tricky ways, from data-mined menu items to "cloaking” text in invisible colors.

It works for them far too often. When you type a phrase like “anti mildew shower curtain” into a search engine, you often find a site that, on the surface, looks promising. The search result says something like, “End shower curtain mold and mildew with new technology curtains.” You click through to the site (http://www.e-showercurtains.com), in hopes of finding a real e-commerce site that sells shower curtains, only to find a site whose biggest contribution to giving you the information you need is the sentence you read back on the search result page. The rest of the site consists of endless repetition of the topic keywords, arranged in ever more creative ways, and it’s all surrounded by a patchwork of Google ads and links to yet more worthless, similar sites.

This kind of garbage is worse than e-mail spam. At least a spam message is easy to spot and wastes no more than a few seconds as you delete it. Chasing after elusive pages of actual, useful information while being distracted and misled by dozens of Web Spam sites consumes a significant amount of my time every day, and annoys me more than anything else about the Web.

Here another example: http://www.directoryaviation.com/. Notice the prominently-positioned Google ad. Notice the misspellings. Notice the fact that there is no content, other than links to other sites. It's all just blather, designed to produce the best Google Ads.

Here's another one: http://aircraftabc.com/. Check out the unbelievably-long menu in the left column that contains nearly every usage of the word "airplane" that exists in the world. This technique is specifically designed to capture a high ranking on Google so you'll stumble onto their page and maybe click on a Google advertisement, earning them a few pennies. This site is disgraceful, pathetic, and a serious regression of human intelligence.

Do yourself – and do the entire Web community - a favor, and don’t spend any time at Web Spam sites. When you recognize it’s Web Spam, just leave. Make the Web a better place by not encouraging this kind of behavior.

Meet the Real Enemies

As the New York Times, the ACLU, and ABC’s World News Tonight have so amply reported in recent days, former National Security Agency (NSA) employee Russell Tice has stepped forward with allegations that the Agency’s intercepts of overseas telephone communications are illegal. He also claims that millions of Americans may have been unknowingly “spied on.”

Last year, Tice had his security clearance revoked, and was subsequently fired from NSA, after officials questioned his mental health. Now he has become a lightning rod for both sides of the “Freedom at All Costs” vs. “Security of our Nation” camps. Tice, a self-described “whistle-blower,” has asked to appear before Congress so he can tell all the details about his former job, including all the juicy details about Signals Intelligence (SIGINT), and his twisted opinions about how its use allegedly violates the law.

I have two huge problems with this.

First, telling Congress secrets of this magnitude (for which many members are not cleared, believe it or not) would be like standing in the editorial office of every major newspaper with a bullhorn and announcing our invasion plans for the next war. As we’ve learned, anything that is said to Congress could be splattered all over the front page the next day. Capitol Hill has enough trouble keeping its leaks plugged with the little stuff, much less the details of critical NSA operations.

“But we MUST know what’s going on there!” the Liberals scream. The government could be SPYING on us. They could be violating our privacy! Bush is a liar!” (I threw that last one in there because they always end their rants with that phrase… Sorry.)

It’s my contention that the real danger in this case is that our national security, for which thousands of unsung warriors have already paid a huge price in the last 60+ years, will now be weakened and compromised.

I must state the following in the strongest terms: High-level intelligence techniques and practices must not be divulged (even to Congress!) or their effectiveness is destroyed. This is a lesson our nation has learned, and re-learned, over and over. Each time this happens, it gets more difficult to develop intel methods -- and maintain the secrecy of these methods -- that contribute to our nation’s overall well-being and safety. When will we learn this lesson for good?

Second, this whole thing is a non-issue. It’s an exaggeration of facts created by the enemies of the current Administration (i.e. the New York Times, the Democratic Party, et al.) in an effort to weaken our country and in so doing, further hurt the President, for whom they have nothing but vile, unspeakable disdain. And apparently, they have the same disdain for the country as a whole.

The interception of telephone calls is a non-issue because the NSA’s intercept program, Echelon, has been widely known about, and written about, since at least 1996.

Note to Liberals: Just because you, personally, didn’t know that your international phone calls might be monitored for key phrases and words like “bomb,” “jihad,” “Al Qaeda,” and “nuclear device” does not mean that you have a right to be outraged by it. Do your homework before becoming outraged, for God’s sake. Read James Bamford’s book, “The Puzzle Palace,” which was available at your local bookstore all through the 1980s and 1990s, or his follow-up book, “Body of Secrets : Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency,” published in 2002. Both detail all sorts of facts (and purported facts) about NSA. Why is everyone suddenly discovering the NSA? Why are some people suggesting that none of this information was known before the New York Times’ recent “scoop?” It definitely was.

Listen up. If you associate with Al Qaeda, or if you build bombs in your basement, or if you conspire with terrorists, you have every right to fear the NSA (and the FBI, and every other security, intelligence, and law enforcement agency). If you are a normal, law-abiding American citizen, you have zero to worry about. You can continue to live your life the way you currently do, and no one is going to haul you off to jail just because you used the phrase “overthrow the government” in a sentence while talking to your cousin Norm on the phone. It ain’t like that.

The NSA is comprised of some of the most brilliant, patriotic, good-intentioned people our country has to offer. They work damned hard, day and night, watching over us in ways you’ll never know about, and they do it without any public adulation or even recognition. From time to time, they get second-guessed and slandered, yet they continue to serve. They do it because they love this country and because they have very unique skills. Despite what the newspapers would have you believe, they are not a bunch of spies run amok who watch you type your e-mails and listen to you gargle your mouthwash in the morning.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) contains very specific “minimization” procedures that dictate how information must be handled in cases where ordinary Americans’ phone calls are intercepted in the course of chasing a lead on a terrorist, or monitoring overseas or diplomatic calls. As far as I’ve seen in the media, there is no evidence that NSA violated FISA -- just that they monitored calls, just like they’ve always done. And this is big news? Am I missing something?

I know I’m flag-waving a bit, but damn it, this whole situation stinks and I want everyone out there to know that they’re being duped by the media, the ACLU, and others. These groups all know just which buttons to press to get people to react emotionally. All they have to do is start talking about the Bill of Rights, secret FISA Courts, and violations of privacy, and a certain percentage of the populace will get outraged. They just love it when that happens. As an indicator of who this non-story appeals to, do a Google search for Russell Tice's name and you'll find nothing but Liberal's blogs and doomsday articles from tin-foil hat wearing "media outlets."

In this case, everyone’s getting outraged for utterly nothing, and it pains me to watch. Freedom is expensive, and if you aren’t willing to pay the price, you are free to leave.

At Least They're Honest...

You know how everyone makes jokes about how hotel housekeepers don't ever speak English? I always assumed that most immigrants from south of the border try hard to learn English, so that they can be more successful in their adopted home country. I guess I'm a fool.

In Huntington Beach, California, the maids at the Hotel Huntington Beach have taken themselves to the next level of societal irrelevance by proudly proclaiming their ignorance. When I checked into my room last night, I couldn't help but notice the large printed card on the desk which said, in part: "My name is Juana. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to assist you. I do not speak English; however, I want to accommodate your requests. Please circle the item needed from the inside cover of this card and I will be happy to deliver the requested item to your suite."

On the other side of the card was an elaborate translation guide featuring drawings of over forty different items, from batteries to Bibles, that I could request. English-speakers could circle the items they needed, and the maids would presumably read the Spanish subtitles underneath. (Unfortunately, there was no pictorial drawing for what I really wanted to request: "Could you please learn English? If I moved to a small town in Mexico someplace, I certainly wouldn't expect my employers and customers to speak English for my benefit. Why do you think you're so special?")

It's apparent to me that the maids at this particular hotel have decided to be lazy and not assimilate themselves into our society in any meaningful way. Instead, they're going to remain in their Spanish-only lives and make the rest of us point to what we want on a card. That's just plain pathetic.

I am really sick and tired of immigrants to our country feeling that we should change for them, instead of the other way around. If you feel the same way, here are a couple of organizations you should check out:

- U.S. English, Inc.
- English First

To be fair to the other side of the issue, here's the ACLU's argument against "depriving people of their rights." You be the judge.

(If you post a reply, post it in English, please.)